Month: July 2009

Uber squeal! The Fall 2009 Converse shoe collection has been unveiled, and boy o boy, are there a few pair in there that I covet. These gold buckled ones are absolutely amazing and just outrageous enough to be so drool worthy I just may have to buy them.

With all the young (and old) love of all things vampire and blood lust these days, I decided to not only re-read the original vampire classic Dracula by Bram Stoker, but I also decided to knit up a little mini Dracula in his honor after absolutely drooling over the book (mind you, it has been years and a bunch of immaturity since I’d originally read Dracula…think age 15).

That being said, I present you with Dracula. He is about 2 inches big and gloriously fangy. There’s nothing better, so all you True Blood and Twilight lovers, beware…Dracula will cut, I mean suck, you up.

Even though I’ve never been an ambitious sock knitter (ribbed and stockinette stitch self-striping is as far as I really go so I don’t have to think about repeats and rounds so much), the Lakeside lace socks by Julia Vaconsin (published in Vol. 2, Winter, 2008 of Knotions Magazine) recently caught my eye and I just had to make these knee socks for myself.

So about a week ago I did just that with some light-weight fisherman’s unprocessed wool in an oatmeal color I had lying around. After completing the provisional cast on (with crochet chain) and finishing the first 12 rounds of stockinette stitch, I realized I should have swatched (ugh! I hate hate hate swatching so I avoid it, which never really ends up helping all the much) and had to rip the whole thing back because the sock was going to be way too gargantuan for my smallish calf.

While sometimes I’ll keep knitting and figure, “Achhk, I can gift them at Christmas”, I really wanted to try and successfully make these socks to my specifications, and if in the end, I didn’t like them so swell, I could ultimately head back to my oft plan of sending them to a new owner. So, I went out and procured new sock yarn to the appropriately perfect gauge in a slightly darker barley colorway, which pleased me nonetheless.

Unfortunately, I tend to have quite short legs, and skinny, petite calf, so this pattern needed me to flex my mathematical muscle and pull off a few alterations. While the pattern calls for 15 repeats of a lace pattern over 4 rounds, I shortened that substantially to 10 before beginning the calf decreases. So far, it looks like this was a smart plan (from eyeballing) and I’m now continuing onto the calf decreases.

The provisional cast on using waste yarn and a crocheted chain, which is eventually folded under and removed to create a pocket to hold elastic (which will apparently actually keep the socks from falling down!!), was easy but a bit of a pain to rip out at the specified joining spot, so I was sweating a bit, but it was pretty much worth it because I think it will look splendid when finished and off the needles despite a bit of odd bunching right now.

With just about a little over a quarter of the first sock complete and a lengthy chart to read, I’m hoping someday, I’ll actually finish these. It’s so hard for me to just keep to one project constantly, so they’ve now sat for about 2 days without work. Ooof.

And if you find yourself knitting up a pair of equally exquisite lace knee socks, or are just looking for inspiration of any kind, I’ve found it for these babies courtesy of Billie Holiday’s version of “I Can’t Get Started” (though the Ella Fitzgerald version is also tops!). You’re welcome in advance…

File Under: Finding inspiration in these socks by knitting them up lakeside at my Mum’s place…

As Kraftworkin’ Kitsch and lover of all things King of Pop promised, I have taken and completed a whole pile of the “Michael Jackson for President” badges as an honor of the greatest entertainer of all time.

These 1-inch badges are glorious, featuring a Thriller-era Michael J. in all his glory.

If you’d like one or three of these badges, it has your name on it. I will be giving these badges out free of charge, so just shoot me an email or leave a comment in this section if you’d like some.

A whole while bck–circa last December–I was in a frenzy to crochet up these extra long, super bulky, and wacky colored scarves for everyone I knew. And I’ve finally properly photographed the delicious neck sweaters (they so long and bulky you might as well be wearing a sweater that’s how warm they are) and thought about making some more before the weather turns yet again (…with all this rain, it makes me panick that we’ll never have a moment of summer sun in Boston this year!).

If you remember correct, my humble readers, I used a honkin’ big crochet hook–size P; and I chained 150 lengthwise and did a row of double crochet and a row of single crochet. The entire scarf was modeled after this brilliant one I saw called “200″ by John Brinegar–which you can check out at his blog or in Ravelry. Mine isn’t as long as his and some of them are thicker–and I also used a larger hook and skipped the fringe. Either way, this is a marvelous design and I’m uber-pleased with the inspiration and the result of the mods.

Thanks to my wonderful friend–and faithful reader–Mackenzie, who got one of her own of these scarves for Christmas last year–I’ve finally conceived of a name for this baby: The Skinny Afghan. Apparently, when she brought it home, her boyfriend Jon likened it to a “skinny afghan” since it’s so long and bulky and all that hoo–so thanks Jon, it was inspired! And it’s now called The Skinny Afghan in your delightful honor.